ORBX vector does make a difference

[Rein2 119]

I just had a look at the first airfield in the P3D v5 airport dropdown list. It's 100 Aker Wood / TN41 /  Spring City / Tennessee. I had ORBX global and OLC North America active. The airfield is just a simple airstrip. What surprised me was that there was no lake in the vicinity (at one end of the aifield).

According to google earth there is a lake at one side of the airfield. After that I activated ORBX vector and started the scenario again. Now I could see the lake in P3D. So I think it's best to keep vector activated. What do you think?

 

 

 

[Patco Lch 1,530]

Interesting example. I keep it off just because it increases my sim start up time by several minutes. Haven’t really missed it in P3DV5@6.

[d.tsakiris 425]

I activated it, but only because there is an error in the P3D vector data in Italy which bothered me. I reported it, but it was never fixed, so I switched to Orbx' Vector. I don't see much difference in performance or loading time, I think.

[spilok 1,141]

Vector does indeed make a difference.  When installed, it takes 7 minutes to load P3d (vs 2 minutes without it).  My frames go down substantially with Vector activated, and the sim just seems sluggish.  I am able to have most of my sliders in P3dv5.4 almost maxed out when I don't have Vector installed.  Honestly, I don't seem to see a big difference in my scenery when Vector is UNINSTALLED.

I did install it again today to confirm what I wrote above.  After one flight from KABE to KBOS, I was convinced that I should go "Vector-free"!

Edited September 8, 2023 by spilok

[Blasb 65]

Yeah unfortunately vector makes p3d super sluggish so its a no-go for me!😔 I would prefer to use it though so it is a bit unfortunate..

[tamba765 56]

I have Vector installed and P3D takes about 1-2 minutes to load up on my machine which doesn't have any super high-end components.  I have 62 Orbx products and a bunch of pay ware airports and aircraft.  My frame rates are pretty good, but can slow down in high density scenery areas, especially with weather in the area. One of the things I noticed when running P3D without Vector was the lack of many roads and highways, which I like to see. Just my preference, I guess.

[BostonJeremy77 558]

This is all nonsense. P3D's new version has an updated verctor data. Orbx is WAY outdated. They are still using for what would have worked for v4. 

[dave2013 1,191]

8 hours ago, Rein2 said:

According to google earth there is a lake at one side of the airfield.

Actually, Watts Bar Lake is missing entirely.

This is a major flaw in the stock vector data, as it's a pretty big lake.

Dave

[Reader 2,056]

1 hour ago, BostonJeremy77 said:

This is all nonsense. P3D's new version has an updated verctor data. Orbx is WAY outdated. They are still using for what would have worked for v4. 

Vector data does not really go "out of date" and still, there are areas where the Orbx version works better than the "updated" P3D version.
The updated P3D version is indeed closer to the Orbx version. Both have holes in them though.
Once P3D has loaded, Orbx Vector does not affect the way that P3D runs and the extended loading times usually are only for the first time that P3D is loaded after Orbx Vector has been added.

[spilok 1,141]

1 hour ago, Reader said:

Vector data does not really go "out of date" and still, there are areas where the Orbx version works better than the "updated" P3D version.
The updated P3D version is indeed closer to the Orbx version. Both have holes in them though.
Once P3D has loaded, Orbx Vector does not affect the way that P3D runs and the extended loading times usually are only for the first time that P3D is loaded after Orbx Vector has been added.

I respectfully disagree with how P3d runs with Vector.

[dave2013 1,191]

1 hour ago, Reader said:

Once P3D has loaded, Orbx Vector does not affect the way that P3D runs

It has been my experience that it does adversely affect performance.

The issue is that instead of just replacing the stock vector data, ORBX vector has to add exclude files for all areas to exclude the stock data, and then it adds the new vector data files.  All of this extra data has to be loaded by the sim, which takes more time and resources.

I also noticed that in-sim map loading takes a lot longer when using ORBX vector.

Dave

[johncott 189]

My thoughts for those people mentioning longer loading times and performance issues with ORBX vector.

Beginning with ORBX Vector for P3DV5, ORBX had to make some changes to their vector product.  This was mainly due to how the airport backgrounds were handled in P3DV5.  Before V5 ORBX vector used one excluded for each small area of the world to remove default vector data including water bodies, coastlines, road data, etc.  LM (Lougheed Martin) changed how the airport backgrounds were handle in P3DV5 and using one exclude file also deleted the default airport backgrounds.  What did ORBX do? They created 9 large world wide files to exclude the nine individual nine vector items: parks, railways, roads, shorelines, streams, traffic, utilities, water and water GPS vector data.  As mentioned, the P3DV5 ORBX nine vector exclude files are large take a long time to load the vector data because they cover the whole world.  Loading these large files can take a long time.  This can cause long loading times on start-up. Also longer loading times for anything with a map like the flight planner and when zooming out on a GPS gauge. These larger files can also create long stutters when flying.

What did I do, I created a fix call "Global_Default_Vector_Removal" available in the AVSIM library.  This replaces the nine large ORBX vector files with smaller ones covering the whole earth with smaller files leading to faster loading times for the items I mentioned earlier.

my main reason for creating my fix was the LM default water data in P3DV5 for rivers in my area where I do a lot of flying is missing.  P3DV6 has the same issue. ORBX Vector does have the missing rivers.

Other thoughts,

ORBxXVector is not perfect,  For example, part of the Yukon River is missing in Alaska,  Grand Lake is missing in Ohio, some land is missing from Mansel Island at the top of Hudson Bay Canada. There are issues with coastlines and missing land around Bella Bella, British Columbia.

I use FreeMeshX mesh data and I find ORBX vector and FreeMeshX works best together. This gives me the best result of any other combination of default vector data, ORBX vector data, FreeMeshX and default mesh especially in the Canadian North where I do a lot of flying.

We all have our reasons for using a particular add-on depending where we fly or what type of flying we do. What may work for one person may not work for another. 

John C.

 

[Reader 2,056]

8 hours ago, dave2013 said:

I also noticed that in-sim map loading takes a lot longer when using ORBX vector.

Classic case of YMMV, as there is with every flight simulator "issue".
So much depends on the hardware and the end user, but here is
the long loading time here of the in-game map with Orbx Vector installed:

Link to a short video

Edited September 9, 2023 by Reader

[jkeye 162]

10 hours ago, Reader said:

Vector data does not really go "out of date" and still, there are areas where the Orbx version works better than the "updated" P3D version.
The updated P3D version is indeed closer to the Orbx version. Both have holes in them though.
Once P3D has loaded, Orbx Vector does not affect the way that P3D runs and the extended loading times usually are only for the first time that P3D is loaded after Orbx Vector has been added.

I too have tried Vector.

I can live with the initial longer load time. However using the map to find Navaid details or anything else becomes impossible and will cause the sim to hang and become unresponsive.

After trying almost everything by way of addons in v6 (Orbx,GEX,UT2 and different landclass) I lost my road traffic and so I've reverted to the stock by having to do a reinstall of v6 to get my road traffic back.

 

[jkeye 162]

9 hours ago, johncott said:

My thoughts for those people mentioning longer loading times and performance issues with ORBX vector.

Beginning with ORBX Vector for P3DV5, ORBX had to make some changes to their vector product.  This was mainly due to how the airport backgrounds were handled in P3DV5.  Before V5 ORBX vector used one excluded for each small area of the world to remove default vector data including water bodies, coastlines, road data, etc.  LM (Lougheed Martin) changed how the airport backgrounds were handle in P3DV5 and using one exclude file also deleted the default airport backgrounds.  What did ORBX do? They created 9 large world wide files to exclude the nine individual nine vector items: parks, railways, roads, shorelines, streams, traffic, utilities, water and water GPS vector data.  As mentioned, the P3DV5 ORBX nine vector exclude files are large take a long time to load the vector data because they cover the whole world.  Loading these large files can take a long time.  This can cause long loading times on start-up. Also longer loading times for anything with a map like the flight planner and when zooming out on a GPS gauge. These larger files can also create long stutters when flying.

What did I do, I created a fix call "Global_Default_Vector_Removal" available in the AVSIM library.  This replaces the nine large ORBX vector files with smaller ones covering the whole earth with smaller files leading to faster loading times for the items I mentioned earlier.

my main reason for creating my fix was the LM default water data in P3DV5 for rivers in my area where I do a lot of flying is missing.  P3DV6 has the same issue. ORBX Vector does have the missing rivers.

Other thoughts,

ORBxXVector is not perfect,  For example, part of the Yukon River is missing in Alaska,  Grand Lake is missing in Ohio, some land is missing from Mansel Island at the top of Hudson Bay Canada. There are issues with coastlines and missing land around Bella Bella, British Columbia.

I use FreeMeshX mesh data and I find ORBX vector and FreeMeshX works best together. This gives me the best result of any other combination of default vector data, ORBX vector data, FreeMeshX and default mesh especially in the Canadian North where I do a lot of flying.

We all have our reasons for using a particular add-on depending where we fly or what type of flying we do. What may work for one person may not work for another. 

John C.

 

Thanks for bringing this to attention again.

Have you tried your fix in v6?